


i need to know that when i fail you'll still be here

by notaboutit



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Not A Fix-It, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, all of the characters are basically just mentioned except for peter and tony, fairly linear narrative, fuck howard stark and you can't change my mind, maybe implied stucky, there are like... no ships except for pepper and tony, this is so much not a fix-it, this is uhhhh really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 09:58:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15838920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaboutit/pseuds/notaboutit
Summary: Tony Stark sits alone on the flight back from Titan. Thinking ensues.





	i need to know that when i fail you'll still be here

**Author's Note:**

> The HTML fucked up like, a little bit in a few places. Basically if you THINK it's meant to be in italics it IS. Also, sorry in advance for this folks

I am Iron Man

It’s a long flight on the way home from Titan. Tony had always hated long flights, and he had nothing to work on right now, no one to talk to. He only had himself and… Nebula. 

_I dreamt we had a kid._  
It was so real.  
We named him after your eccentric uncle. 

Tony Stark’s earliest memories of workshops were not positive ones. He was pushed forcefully out of his father’s workshop too many times to count, his questions dying on his tongue as he was angrily reminded that his father was busy, that he didn’t have time, to entertain Tony. That he was busy changing the world. It seemed that Howard was always to busy changing the world to do anything else. He lived that way, he breathed that way. He didn’t die that way. 

Tony couldn’t help but feel the smallest bit smug over that fact. If Howard hadn’t want his kid to mourn he wouldn’t have-

_If you wanted to have a kid...  
you wouldn't have done that._

After the death of his parents he built what he wanted to build, when he was building at all. The workshop was like his summer camp, where he went to destress and drink. He became a figure for the press, always out, always wasting his genius, doing the best he could to remind everyone that he was Howard Stark’s only living legacy and he didn’t care one fucking bit about it. Until Afghanistan, until Iron Man, until he was able to add the “philanthropist” to his Wikipedia page. Until he was the new-age Captain America, the hero of this century, twice as bold and twice as shiny. Until he ground the memory of Howard Stark into the dirt, made him a mere footnote in the story of Iron Man, of the brilliant Tony Stark. His workshop was something different now, something that made him strong, something that was his. He was Iron Man, he had proved it by telling everyone it was him, by saving it from the hands of those who wanted to abuse it, from-

_When I ordered the hit on you, I was worried that I was killing the golden goose. But, you see, it was just fate that you survived it…you had one last golden egg to give. You really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you? Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now what kind of world would it be if he was as selfish as you?_

But then there was another superhero scientist with an arguably useful, yet very serious Jekyll and Hyde situation. But he didn’t last long, and he didn’t love the limelight, and Tony Stark fought off another bad guy all by himself. And then there was Thor of Asgard, god of thunder, who left as soon as he came, and Tony remained the only hero once more. It wasn’t until Captain America came back in all his glory, working for SHIELD, joined by two master assassins, did he realize that he wasn’t the only superhero anymore, and he wasn’t the realest one anymore, either. And the fought Loki above a tower that held all of his genius; that he had plastered with his own name back when he thought he was the only hero this world had-

_And Loki, he's a full-tilt diva, right? He wants flowers, he wants parades. He wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered-_

And they won. They won and then every fucked off back to whatever they had been doing before. And then Tony had to fight another bad guy, without his team, just like old times. He didn’t even receive a phone call. Everyone else kept doing their own thing for years so he did his. He worked to make earth stronger, so that the next time aliens came knocking, looking to take over, they wouldn’t have to lose so much, people wouldn’t have to suffer so much. He was always just trying to save someone- 

_I'm glad you brought this up, 'cause it's nothing._  
It's just a housing unit for nanoparticles.  
I'm just trying to protect us… and future usses and that's it.  
Just in case there's a monster in the closet. 

He made Ultron, he was to blame, and they hated him for it. He still helped them bring Ultron down, he still kept working so hard to keep the world safe. He spent hours in his workshop trying to understand how to keep them all safe. How to cradle the entire world in his hands. There was a rustling of smaller heroes, but there was already another rich billionaire aligned with “Ant-man” and he didn’t seem to need any help with whatever he was doing. But then the second, the kid in Queens, in the laughable costume who was doing his best to do some real good, who needed money who would accept help, who Tony could help-

And then Civil War happened, and the government stopped trusting superheroes, and for good reason. 

And he made the kid a suit, and he flew him to Germany. And they fought Tony’s teammates (Steve’s teammates)... with Tony’s teammates (one of which could arguably be one of Tony’s inventions but he doesn’t like to think of the gaping hole Vision sometimes left in him, of how much worse it is after Rhodey) and everyone thinks they’ve won because now the accords are in place and Captain America, and fucking Bucky Barnes, and Wanda Maximoff, and Natasha Romanoff, and whoever else, are war criminals now. But Tony remembered how cold it had been in Siberia. How much it had hurt. 

_You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you._

He remembered leaving Siberia, after his plane had been stolen, after his suit had been almost destroyed, after he had thought Steve would kill him and leave him there, and feeling so angry. He was reminded that the kid needed him to be smiling. Needed the Tony Stark facade on his way home. But the kid couldn’t be an Avenger, he was a kid, and he was too young to deal with the Accords and whatever was going down between the former Avengers and the current ones. He just needed… support. He just needed Tony to be there to make him a better hero than he could ever be. That’s all he needed. If you get put into the Avengers immediately you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what you stand for, where your limits are! He didn’t need to be an Avenger, or to be left alone on the streets of New York to die, he needed backup, he didn’t need Tony to pull the sacrifice play, he needed the third option that no one else would give him but Tony Stark.

_I think I would just cut the wire._

He… goofs it with the kid at first. The kid knows his Tony Stark and Iron Man facade but he thinks he’s… getting there. He has surveillance on him to make sure he’s never in danger, and he listens to all of his calls and reports, and he’s there for him when he gets dropped in a lake. Or, well, he was across the ocean on a trip to “find himself” or whatever he’d told the board before he’d left. But he still pulls him out of the water, and how could he have known that Peter would continue chasing the Vulture? At night he hears the whispers in the back of his mind, after, telling him that he was fifteen once too, that he never knew how to listen to orders either, that he’s just mad because Peter is so much like him, and that must mean he is so much like-

_My dad never really gave me a lot of support, and I’m just trying to break the cycle of shame._

But Peter kicks the Vulture’s ass, sends him off to jail, and saves Happy’s job, admittedly. But more than that, he saves all of Tony’s tech from falling into the wrong hands, saves Tony from hurting even more people than he already has- 

_You think you fight for us? You just fight for yourself. Who's going to avenge my son, Stark? He's dead. And I blame you._

So he invites him to be an Avenger. He goes fuck it, he’s mature enough, he saved my hide, he saved Happy’s hide, he didn’t even kill the crazy metal bird man. Who knows who he is and what he stands for, he has morals and Tony just knows he’ll stick to them for as long as he lives. He’s not going to be like the Captain, or Natasha, or Clint, or… any of them. He knows where he stands because he’s drawn the line in the sand. But instead, the kid is too mature, and Tony is too proud to do anything about it. So he proposes to Pepper instead and he makes the commitment. He makes a commitment.

And then it’s so… peaceful. He starts being acknowledged as earth’s best avenger. Because he is the one still doing his fucking job, not Steve, who ran off with Bucky and who doesn’t have time to be a hero anymore. And Tony Stark is the golden hero again. He’s the new-and-improved, 2.0 version of Captain America. He’s twice as bold, twice as shiny, and about a billion times smarter. He keeps inventing, he’s in his workshop everyday, sometimes with Peter, sometimes alone, and his tech just gets better and better. He’s not the smartest in the world anymore and he’s so okay with it, because now there’s more people working to save everyone. And he thinks that finally, finally the earth can be safe.

And then Bruce is back and all he’ll tell him about is Thanos. And Tony feels his heart sinking because this is it. All the hours he has spent in his workshop, all these years fighting to better his tech, finding new heroes, dealing with foreign and domestic governments, and now it’s time. And he’s either prepared or he isn’t. But he has Dr. Strange, and unfortunately he has Peter, and he knows Steve is down on earth and that he might know what to do if Tony… if Tony fails. They meet the Guardians and he dares to think that they have a chance, that he’ll get home to Pepper and finally, after ten years of his adult life, after fighting for recognition his entire childhood and early adulthood, after chasing every rumour into the dark, finally he will get his happily ever after. 

_You have my respect, Stark. When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive. I hope they remember you._

He doesn’t because of course he doesn't. He’s Tony fucking Stark who has never had an entire year of peace and true happiness in his entire life. And Thanos leaves Titan and all he can do is pray that on Earth, Steve is there. And he will win.

And that was a foolish thought because Steve didn’t win, and the snap happened, and he watched the Guardians crumble away into dust. And he waited, barely a moment, and then he heard it, from all his nightmares from every horrific moment he’d dared to think about as a possibility, he had never thought it would hurt so much-

_Mr Stark, I don’t feel so good._

And he tried, he tried to tell him he would be alright. He tried to be convincing. He tried to believe it, himself, that it would be okay.

_I don’t… I don’t know what’s happening._

And he held him. And he thought about the way Pepper held him during nightmares, and he just had to hold it together for a little bit more, Peter couldn’t see him break down over this. 

_Please… please I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go._

All he could do was lean him back and be there for him, hide the alien planet from his sight and just… just let him see something familiar. 

_I’m sorry._

I tried, he wanted to scream. I tried, I tried, I tried. He had tried to hard, he had wanted to make a plan, he had done his best to work with people who didn’t respect him his entire life, he had held what was left of the Avengers together with money and tech he had done everything to get to this moment and he couldn’t even save this kid, his kid, the one he had brought into the battle at Germany and into space, both such big steps for such a young kid. All he had done was fail. He had failed. 

He could fix it. He could fix it if he assembled the Avengers, once and for all. One last ditch effort to save the universe. 

_I had a dream about it.  
It was so real._

**Author's Note:**

> The Quotes are all kind of from random Marvel movies, they're all either said by Tony or to Tony, all of them are kind of sad in their own way, I think? Anyway if you like it, I have another one that's much happier that you can use to comfort yourself. If you want to yell at me about it, my tumblr is okay-lupin so hit me up! Anyway, leave kudos if you liked/hated it, maybe toss in a comment? Hope you enjoyed it and I'm sorry!


End file.
